My inner Archie Bunker 1.

For all of you lucky people flouncing around in your winter wonderland in anticipation of the upcoming extravaganza of gustatory delights and material flamboyance that Christmas has become, I offer this small amuse cranium sent by a good friend of a good friend...

Here in LaLa Land it is the rainy season and that means, that's right, rain. There is an old wives' tale that the Inuit have over 100 words for snow...it's just snow for chrissakes. So too in the tropics there are an equally large number of variations in the way the water falls from the sky, but in the end the result is the same. It's rain. You get wet.

Holding together a training plan means that you will have ample opportunity to prove the above statement. The alternative is too ghastly to imagine. 6 hours on a trainer? Now, where did I put those booties?

Yesterday, on a tooth rattling, taint bashing 85 km/hr descent in a blinding piss fest, I communed with my inner Archie Bunker. As I age I find him coming to me with increasing frequency. The pleasure of this visit was owing to a little tune in that I had the previous morning.

Kiddo and I had a date called Report Card Day. Normally not a huge deal unless your child is either an idiot or a savant, this meeting took on a whole new trajectory round about the time the outgoing head of the school's advisory board was winding up his speech by dropping (rather proudly) that his son had opened a practice as a... well, really, the only word we have in English seems to be... witch doctor.

Now, one might expect that there would be a bit of a pregnant pause at this point...nope. Just a bunch of people whipping out their Blackberries and tapping away to make sure they got his number and particulars should their child experience falling marks or emotional problems owing to black magic, curses or possession.

O-Kaaaaaay...

Then we all had snacks...

I'm not going to launch into some long drawn out discussion of cultural relativism or the like. At some moments it just really strikes me how different my thought process is from many people around me here. Child has bad marks, call the witchdoctor...Nanny would have offered something more down home that she used to refer to as, "kicking your ass up to your ears". To each their own.

To end this post on a more down to earth note, I picked up a couple of these jerseys from Klaus over at Cycling Inquisition. Now, his only contribution to the whole affair was to make them look drop dead awesome... OK, I guess there was that whole 2 years of blogging thing beforehand that made it all possible, but I digress.

ANNNNNYWAYS, the point is that these Hincapie jerseys have a really weird attribute; dirt doesn't stick to the bloody things! I've got over 20 hours in the rain on this white one and it doesn't show a spot. the shot above is after yesterdays love-in. I just hit it with a little dish soap and faster than you can say SUAVEMOTHERFUCKER, the dirt is down the drain. George better watch his fine self so the Iraqis down "down" and analyze his kit.

Oh, one more thing...

Cassava (yucca) patties with chives and cumin. Feel the love.

Merry Christmas Meatheads,

Ruben